App Profile: Learn Japanese! - Kanji

Nighthawk4211

Rating: 5/5

Of the kanji-learning apps I’ve tried this one is the best. It does a good job of teaching me to remember the meaning and reading from the character, the character and meaning from the reading, and the character and meaning from the reading. Compound words are always introduced after the constituent characters. Lessons seem to have about the right number of characters in them for an appropriate challenge level. There are not hints that encourage cheating like Duolingo’s audio cues, so it actually knows what I have and have not learned for useful spaced repetition. Occasionally there are issues when multiple Japanese words and/or their English translations are near-synonyms, requiring arbitrary memorization of which English word or phrase goes with which kanji rather than actual language learning. For example 連れてくる and 連れて来る are the same word but have two different English translations, one of which is the same as the translation of 連れて行く (both versions of 連れて来る should probably be “to bring someone here” and 連れて行く should probably be “to take someone somewhere”). I’ll forgive the developers for having a few of these challenges, as a solution is not obvious! I would also appreciate a mode where the characters are introduced in grade-level order rather than JLPT order, because I’d like to learn Japanese as much like a native speaker as possible.

shaunjc06

Rating: 5/5

Updated: please read edit The app is top notch, but little, bugs will annoy. It's still worth it, but beware of trusting it too much. An example I came across today is the kanji 界 which it gives the association "kingdom" but other dictionaries (I checked 3) give the association "world", "area", or "boundary" kingdom is only listed as one of the definitions associated with biology As in an animal kingdom. So I'm not sure if that is the right meaning to assign that kanji as it seems like a special case and not the usual meaning. In addition to that, while doing the writing practice for a different kanji in the same lesson(室), one of the strokes was just completely missing. I'm only on jlpt 4, but it makes me wonder how correct these really are, and how many more errors there will be going forward. I'm not planning on taking any tests yet, but someone who is should be wary using this tool to do so, and I have seen other user reviews reflect the same sentiment. EDIT: Thanks to the quick response from the developer I'm updating this review to five stars. Seemed my app was outdated. I'm not sure why because I had automatic updates on, but if anyone is having similar issues try re-downloading. My issues are resolved now. Thanks!

bunnynclover

Rating: 5/5

I normally don’t write reviews or even buy phone apps, but I’m so impressed at the effectiveness of this kanji app. I’ve tried other kanji apps and found them to be way too complicated to use that I wasn’t motivated to study with them every day. This app really just gets to the point with reading, writing, and understanding the meaning of a word, and I can quickly use this to review words I’ve gone over in the app. It’s a very simple interface, but this flashcard style of learning works way better than anything else I’ve ever used. The way the words are grouped is very effective for learning too, with lessons in chunks of 4 words. The improvement in my Japanese comprehension has been night and day since starting this app, and I can’t wait to finish all the lessons in this app. This is such a daily staple to my daily routine now and I look forward to reviewing and learning new lessons every day. With any small app, there are slight bugs with pronunciation in some words and there are features I think could improve the app. However, the developer is very responsive to messages, so I’m glad I invested in this app knowing it’ll be well-maintained. Thank you!